Man in the past recovering from an overdraft took several weeks because we’d think we were ok and over-budget, pay too much to the bills and then get back in the hole – having this new budget system has helped us prevent such a situation, I have a better hold on the finances (so to speak) and can overcome such hardships with fewer problems.

BUT don’t let that hide anything – we still are looking for ways to make some extra money – specifically for Christmas – we’re saving for that but it’s been very slow, we’ve pretty much spent our cash withdrawal down the last penny. Making extra money/income has proven difficult – WritersCash fell through simply because I didn’t feel comfortable doing the work – seemed to much like it was people buying research papers for college and that just wasn’t something I could get behind – that and it was entirely academic writing…so that’s scratched off and we’re back at square one.

This being said, we’re doing ok for now, I am tad stressed because I haven’t paid the mortgage in a couple weeks, we’re behind on the car payment, and we’re playing catch-up on the utilities, specifically the electric, UGH UGH UGH! I think right now just about the only thing working in my favor is the fact that I am now down 7lbs on my journey to weight loss and better physical health…that’s saying something right there LOL!!

Anyhew, the reason we’re here, the budget – here goes – the transactions posted here immediately below are including what we spent over the weekend before I did the checkbook balancing over lunch today, so the negative shown is not completely accurate:

$24.24

Remaining from W/E 11/03/13

$525.97

Lara W/E 11/10/13 Salary, Pay Date 11/15

$42.27

Amt. Spent

$247.67

Jimmy W/E 11/10/13 Salary

$(18.03)

Avail. Starting

$773.64

$2.09

KTC

$(18.03)

Avail. Starting

$16.22

Wal-Mart

$773.64

Total Pay

$5.12

PetsMart

$755.61

Avail. For Bills

$9.17

McDonald’s

$4.18

Wal-Mart

$5.49

Target

$42.27

And with the line item breakdown:

$755.61

$70.00

Brigades Boys & Girls Club

$685.61

$200.00

Groceries

$485.61

$25.00

Jimmy’s Money

$460.61

$25.00

Dinner, 11/15

$435.61

$40.00

Gas

$395.61

$25.00

Cat & Dog Food

$370.61

$89.00

APM Int’l, 11/15 Auto-Draft

$281.61

$7.99

Hulu.com, 11/21 Auto-Draft

$273.62

$111.00

Great Lakes, 11/17 Auto-Draft

$162.62

$60.00

AT&T

$102.62

$70.00

Progress Energy

$32.62

$32.62

7%

$2.28

$2.28

$30.34

The beauty here is that the $89.00 APM Int’l will no longer be there after this month – we’ve cancelled my son’s contract and pulled him out, he was miserable going to TKD and wasn’t participating or learning anything new – which honestly is sad, because I sincerely feel that IF the instructors actually took time to teach him and engage him he might have been more interested and learned more and maybe just maybe he’d still be going – but the last few months over the summer I noticed that he was left on his own more and more and basically ignored unless he did something he shouldn’t have…sad but very true…

Anyhew, and now with the cash withdrawal – now I will say something else here, my husband is taking our daughter out on a Daddy-Daughter date later this week and I didn’t budget for that, but I did ensure that there was enough cash left in the account so he could take her out without much worry.

$755.61

$70.00

Brigades Boys & Girls Club

$685.61

$320.00

Cash for Week

$365.61

$89.00

APM Int’l, 11/15 Auto-Draft

$276.61

$7.99

Hulu.com, 11/21 Auto-Draft

$268.62

$111.00

Great Lakes, 11/17 Auto-Draft

$157.62

$60.00

AT&T

$97.62

$70.00

Progress Energy

$27.62

$2.28

Merrill Transfer

$25.34

So that’s where we’re at right now – recovering from the Overdraft, getting ready for Thanksgiving- which OMG is NEXT week, when did that happen?!?! LOL!!! And then subsequently getting ready for Christmas. We’re, I’d say this week, Ok

Lesson Learned: Track Bills Better and Think Positively because You Too Can Recover!

Like this:

Ugh a head cold set in yesterday forcing me to take a side trip to the drug store to pick-up some meds, turns out we couldn’t use our medical spending account at the register, me being too foggy in the brain to think, used our debit card to pay for it – and yes all the while I had cash in my purse, causing us to overspend our account by $3.00, which means I’ll now need to deposit the cash in my wallet (less $15.00 for pumpkins) into our account to prevent overdraft…
Oh and yeah that same fogginess in the brain caused me to pick-up one wrong item so I am going to return it in hopes I can exchange it for the right one today if they have the correct one…
Man I hate being sick!